School staff “moved mountains” to ensure children with special needs had access to teaching during lockdown, EDUCATE webinar hears

Teachers and classroom assistants were on a steep learning curve and “moved mountains” during the Covid-19 lockdown to ensure that children with special needs and disabilities (SEND) received an education, an EDUCATE Ventures webinar was told.

The event was the latest in the Shock to the System series organised by EDUCATE, examining the experiences of teachers, learners and parents during the school shutdown, and the lessons learned for the future.

The most recent webinar brought together experts and educators specialising in working with vulnerable children. The event was chaired by Lord Jim Knight, a former schools minister in the Blair government.

Lorraine Peterson, an educational consultant at LPEC and former chief executive of the National Association for Special Educational Needs (Nasen), outlined some of the difficulties faced by teachers working in special and mainstream schools.

She said that Department for Education guidance for special schools seemed to come out after advice for mainstream schools and there was “always a feeling that special schools weren’t important”. There were also promises of laptops and funding that never materialised, or for which schools had to “jump through hoops”.

But, Ms Petersen said, staff “stepped up to the plate” and relished the use of technology by sharing lessons and assemblies, and using online resources provided by the Oak National Academy. Some children thrived because they were able to learn at their own pace. She added: “I would hate to see us lose all of that and my worry is that as soon as we’re back to normal we won’t use technology in the same way.”

Dr Helen Ross, Independent Researcher/Founder ofHelen’s Place Education Consultancy, said she believed children had “lost some of their sparkle” during lockdown, and through being “tied all day to a computer and not able to wriggle”.

“The flip side is that other children found the use of tech transformational. They were able to work at their own pace, pause lessons and go back to it,” she said. “For those who find the sensory overload of school difficult it has been positively transformational. The notion that lockdown has been all bad [for children’s learning] is disingenuous.”

Gareth Morewood, a former Senco in a large secondary in Lancashire and now Educational Advisor at Studio III, said that some of the most successful practice during the pandemic came from schools that already empowered parents and learners through independent learning and personalisation. “That was their normal way of working and they transferred that to the home learning environment,” he said.

“But some of the best schools were those that understand that learning didn’t all have to happen online, and sent the children out into the garden between 10am and midday to look for creepy crawlies.”

Meanwhile, Professor Julia Carroll, from the Centre for Global Learning, Coventry University, agreed that the engagement of parents was crucial, though often difficult for schools. She said: “If you have a system where you’re focussing on results and compliance then you’re not focussing on relationships and what’s best for particular children.”

She added that parents had been “an essential part of the learning relationships during the pandemic in a way they had not been before” and online training or resources for parents would help to continue that engagement.

Professor Rose Luckin told the participants that the webinar had been one of the most positive that EDUCATE had hosted because of the optimism of the participants that “so much could be done in the future that wouldn’t cost a fortune”.

The webinar was held as Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools, said in a newspaper interview that SEND pupils had incurred some of the biggest learning losses from schools being closed to a majority of children, and that this had stunted language development for many.

Ms Spielman said that SEND learners had been especially hard hit because they “typically also draw on support services outside school, and a lot of those have been suspended… things like speech and language therapy.”

*If you missed the webinar, you can catch up on our YouTube channel.